Grae stood, and with a mighty roar, lifted the fallen log they had been sitting on. He swung about and hurled it into the brush, guessing where the arrow had come from. Nothing. There was only stillness and the dim light of the night-star brushing its fingers through the shaking leaves…

“Greenleaf! Larktongue! Hide under the cart!” They heard and obeyed, scurrying past him towards the safety of the wagon. Greenleaf paused, trying to reach out to Sarcer, but the older kobold pulled her away.

Grae stood alone. The firelight flickered behind him and made his body a black, hulking shadow.

He pushed mana into his second constellation, the Open Eyes. His skin hardened and turned rough like treebark.

The arrow came from the dark with a rasping shhh of sound. It struck him in the meat of the shoulder, biting down until it struck against bone with an awful, agonizing pang.

Grae’s jaws launched spittle as he roared and unleashed a water bullet towards the source. It slammed into the trees and undergrowth, tearing up the earth.

A shadow flickered as it moved away, dodging towards a nearby tree.

Grae’s finger pointed and another bolt of water flicked into the shadow’s path. Again, the hidden foe slipped aside just in time, but it didn’t matter.

Grae knew where he was now.

He crashed down through the undergrowth, slashing forward with his claws. Splinters of wood rained as he tore through the trees. He saw the attacker clearly now.

Heidrich.

The man wore a jacket of armored green scales fitted together so perfectly they made no sound. He wore a cloak of utter night that made him into a blur of darkness. As he dropped back, evading the sweep of Grae’s claw, he dropped the crossbow in his hands and drew forth a simple, sturdy sword the length of his forearm.

“You talk, beastie?” He asked.

“It doesn’t matter now, but yes..” Grae growled. His huge size was an advantage against a short blade, his arms longer than the sword’s stinging reach. He had thick, furred armor over his weakpoints. In strength, there was no contest.

But killing enemies who were bigger and tougher and stronger was what humans did.

“Interesting. Not going to save you, but, interesting.” The man’s posture was like stone. He talked, but his feet remained rooted, his arms braced with the knife held upwards like a scorpion’s sting. One hand over the the other. Ready for the first blow to fall.

“My own question.” Grae said. Waiting did him no favors, with blood leaking from his shoulder, but…

Curiosity won out.

“You waited until we left. Why? For the girl’s sake?”

At first he’d assumed Heidrich wanted to protect Lena, but, Heidrich had been willing to let the girl play with a beast who’d killed seven men. There had to be a protection in place. This was a man who’d used all his strength to build a perfect palace of summer days for his child. He’d never have risked her alone with some mangy unknown beast…

“You wouldn’t understand…”

Grae snorted. “You waited so she wouldn’t have to see blood.” It was sentimental.

Heidrich’s lips twitched. A ghost of a smile. “Maybe you would, then.”

It happened very quickly.

Grae’s claw slammed downwards. Heidrich twisted, letting the blow strike against his armor, clawtips bringing out lines of bright white sparks as they raked across his chest. The blow still carried the power to push him to the ground, folding his body in around the impact.

His knife slammed home in the same moment, driving up through the tendon of the arm and cutting it apart.

From an outside perspective, it looked as if Grae had triumphed. His blow crushed Heidrich to the earth. But in truth, he’d done no more damage than bruise the man and throw him about. For that…

Grae had lost the use of an arm.

Before he could react, that too-sharp blade ripped free of the underside of his arm and slashed along the side, slicing into another delicate tendon. He was being taken apart with the skill of a butcher; there was wild glee in Heidrich’s eyes. He was no longer the taciturn, emotionless wall of stone.

The man had come alive with the joy of bloodshed.

His mouth was open in a wordless laugh as he rolled aside, letting Grae’s good arm catch nothing but leaves and dirt as it raked the ground open where he’d been. His blade flicked in a humming silver crescent as he spun smoothly onto his feet, ripping at Grae’s flank. The blade paid no mind to his hardened skin. It sliced through him like butter and met bone with the ease of a stone passing through a lake’s surface.

Grae roared and, in blind pain, swung again.

His foe darted around him. The blade stung in and out of his flesh like a bee’s sting, keeping him off-balance, keeping his eyes red with anger and agony.

This was how he died, he realized.

This was how so many beasts had died. Bigger, stronger, tougher. But their claws reached and found only air. Their enraged howls grew weaker as a thousand cuts drained the strength from their body. This was what death looked like, for his kind.

Waters bullets formed and streaked through the air. His claws tore saplings to pieces and chipped the bark of ancient oaks into flying shrapnel. His foe was never there. Heidrich aimed for his legs when he could, cutting Grae down with a dozen short cuts until a knee buckled, and suddenly the great beast struggled to stand.

The knife slashed for his throat.

Grae waved it away with a flick of his good arm. Heidrich was forced to abandon the killing blow and step back, but it was almost done.

It was one single blow away from being over.

Grae had one last lunge in him. One chance to stop the knife from biting into his jugular and opening his throat into bloody death.

They stared each other down.

Grae had already begun to cast. His spell was shapeless, formless. It was nothing at all. Not a water bullet, not some miraculous healing to restore his ruined arm.

It was simple a siphon that dragged in mana from the world outside, and made the voices scream in his head, louder and louder and louder and-

And Heidrich moved, stabbing forward.

Grae feinted. He half-swung with his good arm, and made Heidrich step aside, circling into his weak-spot, his wounded flank. The smile on the man’s face…

It was hideous.

And in that moment Grae thrust the siphon out of his body and into Heidrich. Sending the swirling, screaming gale of voices into his enemy’s mind for a fatal, all-consuming second.

Heidrich blinked, his feet suddenly losing balance. His mouth hung open in shock.

And Grae pushed forward, lifting off the ground to slam his shoulder into the man’s gut. His wounded arm could barely make a fist, but he could still make crude, rough motions. He could still wrap it over Heidrich’s back and clinch the hold with his good left arm.

With blood rushing in his ears Grae lifted Heidrich high into the air. His ruined leg only had a single step left before it collapsed.

But in that single step he put all his strength into carrying his foe towards the trunk of a massive oak. Raised high over Grae’s shoulder, Heidrich stabbed into his back again and again, clawing deep, bloody wounds.

With an earthshaking roar Grae swung his enemy down, putting the weight of his own collapsing body into a single brutal blow. Heidrich was flung against the tree with Grae’s shoulder coming down atop him, and together, their two bodies hammered against ancient and lightning-tested wood until it cracked, splintered, broke.

The oak split at its middle and came crashing down. In the sprawl of splintered rubble, Grae struggled to breathe, to stand, to find any spark of strength left in his body.

Heidrich lay bloody-faced, his body crushed beneath his armor. A faint groaning came up from deep in his broken chest, pushing bubbles of blood from his mouth, filling his smile with red.

Grae rose.

He grasped the man’s throat, lifting him like a ragdoll. His jaws clamped down. With a single wrench of his neck, he ripped Heidrich’s throat open and cast the body aside.